Baby Shower Onesie Station

I can’t believe that our whale themed baby shower was 2 months ago. Week after week I kept telling my self I would share our Baby Shower Onesie Station and each week it kept slipping by the way-side. After multiple people reaching out to me about how I did our onesie station I figured it was time to share with the world.

The wonderful folks at Cricut sent me a wide variety of Iron-On Vinyl to help make this possible! Gone are the days of puffy painted onesies. Let’s get real–who really puts their kid in the puffy paint onesies that Aunt Sally made at your shower? I’ve had multiple friends have them done at their baby showers and they are lucky to have maybe 5 onesies that they actually like and dress their baby in. That’s when it occurred to me to do an iron-on onesie station. I would still have a lot of control on what was going on the onesies yet everyone could still “make them”. It was a win-win. And yes, if you haven’t realized yet–I’m a bit of a control freak.

First up, I dyed my onesies. We had 30 people attending and I had 35 onesies available so at least everyone could make one. Not everyone made one, some made a few, others didn’t make any. I chose to make blue, green, yellow, and turquoise onesies. I tried for red but it came out a deep pink, so I just saved those onesies for my friends who are expecting girls! I spent about a week working on dying onesies in batches. About one color a day. I also had one package of white onesies for those who like the traditional onesie color.

Tips when working with dye:

Make sure you wear gloves.

Make sure you cover your work surface with towels/newspaper so that the surface is not dyed as well. In this case it was my brand new butcher block countertops.

I used a scrap piece of wood as my stirring stick. You can also use a paint stick from the hardware store.

Make sure you don’t just throw the onesies in the dye. Take the time to unfold each of them–if not they will be splotchy even after soaking for 20+ minutes.

Wash the onesies after you have dyed them. Don’t worry about washing in baby detergent since you’ll want to wash them again before they go on the baby (all those germs from your guest–doesn’t mix well).

I also did a few dip dyed in each color. Those took longer because I physically had to stand there and hold the onesies in the bucket. Was it worth it… yes! I love how the dip dyed ones turned out. I’m sure Jon could have figured out a contraption for me, but it wasn’t worth him spending any additional time on my project.

After the onesies were all dyed it was time to make the cut-outs using the Iron-On Vinyl.

It is IMPERATIVE that you remember to click the “rotate” button before you go to cut your Iron-On Vinyl.

I decided to cut out the images and then let my guest “weed out” the negative parts. I felt that this was a fairly simple task for them to do. Everyone did a great job. Although, in hind sight I wish I would have had a few more tools and maybe one more table set up so that my guest could make more at once. But it seemed to work out well. We had a few people at the table throughout the 2-3 hour shower.

Here is what you’ll need to make the baby shower onesie station happen.

The day of the party we placed a table that had adjustable legs so that the table was not waste high (I’m 5’1 and it was almost chest high on me). I placed a piece of batting underneath the table.

I created basic instructions that I placed in the mirror above the table. This helped for anyone who was not familiar with how to apply the Iron-On vinyl on to the onesies.

I laid out a variety of onesies in different piles (sorted by color not size but you can do whatever you’d like). Pictured above is just an example of how I laid out the onesies. These photos were taken after the party with the remaining onesies I had left.

I cut pieces of muslin for everyone to use when they applied the iron-on vinyl on to the onesie.

I had a stack of vinyl cut out that my guest could choose from.

I asked a few friends to bring an iron for the onesie station. I placed a piece of tape with their name on the iron handle so that everyone got their iron back at the end of the party. If you have time before the shower do a test run of the irons. We had 4 irons plugged in and they kept tripping the breaker. The first time it happened was when Jon was out picking up the catering and well let’s just say that we were trying to get it back up and running but had to wait for him to get back home.

Here was the onesie bar in action and some of the onesies created. I only snapped one photo the entire time people were making onesies. I wish I would have remembered to take more photos, but to be honest I’m glad I could just sit back and enjoy the day! It looked like a cyclone hit the table at the end. So to me that means it was a success.

After the baby shower, Jon, my mom (pictured above) and myself all spent a little time at the onesie table making the baby some cute onesies. My mom chose the happy hump day one because she loves the commercial.

Jon made 3 onesies for the baby–he couldn’t stop making onesies, and then requested that I cut some other Iron-On vinyl for other onesies he wants to make. I can see us dyeing some more onesies for the baby… but i think we will wait until he starts wearing all the onesies that were created at the baby shower before we make any more.

Comments

OMG! So adorable! You are a gorgeous mom and your husband is tops. If your husband is excited about being involved, you should let him make more onesies, you’ll go through them in no time anyway lol
Beautiful shower and great idea
God bless all of you

I just want to say thank you for this post! I am helping host a baby shower and I thought decorating onesies would be a great idea- but this blew me away! Turns out my dad actually has a cricut so this was perfect-the vinyl was a little more than I was hoping to spend but I did find good deals online for a variety pack! Plus with as cute as they were I just couldn’t resist trying this! The baby shower is next weekend so *fingers crossed* mine turns out as well as yours did!

Oh Tina I’m glad I could help. Yes, the iron-on vinyl is a little on the expensive side; however, looks 100 times better than the puffy paint version! 🙂 Feel free to email me with pictures so I can share socially. Good luck!

How have the onesies held up? I’m planning this for an office shower and want to ensure these have survived the washer dryer. Also, since the onesies are knit, does the vinyl “crack” when it’s stretched? Thanks! Great post! The best one I’ve seen on Pinterest.

Hi Lynnette. Great questions. So far he’s worn a dozen different designs multiple times. I’ve found that the very fine cut items don’t hold up as well as the thicker cut. I.e., small words vs a large animal like a gator. I have not had any cracking on the larger cuts but on one of his onesies that has writing I’ve seen some crinkling but no cracking and it’s been through the wash about 5 times now. Hope that helps answer your questions. I think the mom-to-be will LOVE the onesies! So far the favorite that everyone keeps asking where I got it is “my mom is blogging this” and “katie & jon production”. So I’ve started making the “production” onesie as gifts for friends and family!

Thanks Megan. I used a wide variety of cartridges and fonts for the onesie station. The sky is the limit. Had I had the Cricut Explore for our Onesie station there would have been a lot more “custom” onesies not just pre-design styles from the cartridges.